François Truffaut was truly the Man Who Loved Movies, a quintessential
filmmaker who wrote and directed his pictures with a consistency of quality
and artistic conviction that placed him firmly among the greatest auteurs in
international cinema, right beside Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, and Stanley Kubrick. He wrote about movies with great love, and celebrated
life in his own films with a poetic and often romantic realism.

Born in Paris on February 6, 1932, Truffaut endured an unhappy childhood, drawn both to cinema and trouble. Rescued from delinquency by
the critic Andre Bazin, he cultivated his passion for film by viewing thousands of movies, interviewing directors, and writing brilliant articles for
the influential film journal Cahiers du Cinema. It was only a matter of time
and money before he started making films himself, and after a brief apprenticeship with Roberto Rossellini, he directed several shorts, Une Visite
( 1954) and Les Mistons ( 1957). He provided the story for
Godard Breathless
( 1959), and with his directorial debut Les Quatre Cents Coups/The 400 Blows
( 1959), helped spearhead the "New Wave" of French filmmaking. The 400
Blows introduced cinematic alter-ego Jean-Pierre Leaud as Antoine Doinel,
and audiences watched Leaud/ Doinel progress from childhood to maturity
in a remarkable series of films -- L'Amour à Vingt Ans/Love at Twenty ( 1962), Baisers voles/Stolen Kisses ( 1968), Domicile conjugal/Bed and Board ( 1970), and L'Amour en fuite/Love on the Run ( 1979).

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